I saw Pierre Lacotte in the audience on Friday night with Agnes Letestu and Jose Martinez at the opening performance of La Bayadere. His production of Ondine for the Kirov is due to be premiered during the White Nights Festival in the summer. Diana Vishneva and Andrian Fadeyev were sublime in La Bayadere. Will write more later in the week.

A travel article on St Petersburg with more of an arts bent than usual:

Party on in Petersburg the great Russia’s finest city is gearing up for a big birthday bash — and now is the time to go, says Tom Otley for The Sunday Times

It looks like being the birthday bash of the year. The city of St Petersburg lights its 300th candle in 2003, and its gift from the Russian government has been a big sack of roubles to celebrate the anniversary in style, and to bankroll the wholesale renovation of its museums, palaces and squares. Quite right too — after all, President Vladimir Putin is a St Petersburg native.

The city has splashed out £250m on a fresh coat of white and gold paint for the Hermitage Museum; an elegant repaving of Palace Square; rejuvenation of the 600-tonne Alexander Column; and more. Putin is spending another £125m to reconstruct the ruined Konstantin Palace in Strelna, and the city’s main street, Nevskiy prospekt, has also had a big revamp.

Petipa's grand spectacle restored By Clement Crisp for The Financial Times

Tsar Peter's city celebrates its tercentenary this year, most notably at the moment by shrouding its buildings in scaffolding and nets as much-needed restoration and decoration takes place. Even so, the palaces and churches gleam, and the panorama of almond, green, red and gilded architecture gives this ravishing city its ageless splendour.

The Mariinsky Theatre facade is under wraps, but inside, a 10-day festival of ballet is being staged. I arrived for what I supposed was the opening fanfare, a reconstruction of the Romantic-era charmer, Ondine, by Pierre Lacotte. But the production has been postponed until the summer and a new Bayade`re was given in its place. This is, like the proposed Ondine, an exercise in time travel. Sergei Vikharev has adopted the same procedures as those he used a few years ago in restoring the "original" Sleeping Beauty from early notations and production records. Bayadere, unlike Beauty, has had a vexed stage history in Petersburg. First given in 1877, it was revised by Petipa (its choreographer), most notably in 1900, and then subjected to editing, excision, repositionings and the addition of dances during the Soviet era.

Dear Kevin, you are usually so generous, sometimes overgenerous, and now, unexpectedly, you gave quite a critical review of "La Bayadere" on the 23rd of February. To me, on the contrary, Daria Pavlenko's Nikiya did not seem severe on that evening. I liked her seriousness, it would be better to describe her as serene. She is a ballerina who does not aim at superficial effects and has a great potential to become an outstanding ballet personality. Where another, already accomplished ballet personality is concerned I can say that the only thing which went wrong for Nikolai Tsiskaridze on that night were his landings after the six double assembles. All the rest was excellent, especially his fantastic grand jetes, jete en tournant, pirouettes, not to mention his incredible suppleness and grace. His stage presence justified the plot of this ballet. With all respect for other Solors' dancing one feels that only Tsiskaridze's Solor is worth of all those intrigues and fighting between the leading females.

The Dancing Times Goes to St Petersburg By Mary Clarke for the Dancing Times

The private tour to St Petersburg during its International Ballet Festival, designed, on behalf of The Ultimate Travel Company, by Tania Illingworth (née Tolstoy), Russian Consultant to the company and acknowledged expert in her field, for Dancing Times readers — announced in our issue of last October — was fully, indeed over subscribed and duly took place from February 22-26. As always when dealing with Russians, there were some last minute changes of plan but, over all, the trip was voted a great success and many of the 25 participants said afterwards “Can we do it again?” (Tania and Ultimate Travel willing, we should like to.)

Cinderella, in Ratmansky’s staging, was scheduled at the Maryinsky on the evening of February 22, when we arrived, but tickets were not allocated in advance in case of flight delays. There were in fact no delays and everything about the flight and arrival (except for the dreadful crush to get through Passport Control at the Petersburg international airport) went smoothly.

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